


Hail to the Thief

by Lisztful



Series: Hail to the Thief [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hail to the Thief Series, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisztful/pseuds/Lisztful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This title is the alternate title for the first track of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, 2+2=5.  The song inspired the work, and the lyrics are posted below the story.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. The Lukewarm

**Author's Note:**

> This title is the alternate title for the first track of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, 2+2=5. The song inspired the work, and the lyrics are posted below the story.

It all starts with a telephone call.

Sam is alone in the hotel room, and he knows better than to answer the phone, of course, but Dean has gone out without him, and maybe he feels a little petulant, a little lonely, or maybe he just decides he ought to, so he picks it up on the second ring, says, "Hello?"

For a moment there's only static, and Sam has a second to think, oh shit, because he's so been here before, with the ghostly phone calls, and then sure enough, his father is saying, "Sammy, Sammy, listen to me."

"Nice try," Sam says, "but my dad's dead twice over," and the line seems to click into place.

"Okay, so that was a little obvious," Lucifer says, "But you get the idea. You could get him back. Third time's the charm," he adds, and chuckles.

"Try a new song," Sam says quietly, twisting the cord of the old fashioned phone. "This one's getting old."

Lucifer just laughs again. "It's a classic number, Sammy. Don't you think it's what Dean really wants? To have his Daddy back? You can make that happen, buddy. You can set everything right."

"Hell no," says Sam, because his careful making up with Dean is still fresh and fragile, and bringing back someone else who has historically given him a hard time about his every life decision isn't even remotely tempting.

"Don't worry," says Lucifer, "I'll figure it out. What's a lock without a key?"

The line goes dead.

After, Sam sits on the edge of the bed for a long time. He can't say for certain whether or not Lucifer's right, but he does seem to have a pretty solid point. Sam tries to come up with some positive life example of his winning out over temptation.

There was junk food, which he'd given up in high school, when he realized he just couldn't keep up with Dean at shotguns and ripping off vampires' heads. That lasted maybe a week before the lure of chips and burgers and soda defeated him.

He'd given up alcohol once, too, after cleaning up a sloppy drunk Dean one too many times. This ended up not being feasible when he realized that then he'd have to watch Dean get sloppy while he remained sober. So, that didn't last long.

There are other things, of course, girls he couldn't have, masturbation, occasional instances of stealing or cheating.

Really, his track record is not good. Interestingly, it's mostly Dean's fault. In fact, entirely, amends Sam, who hasn't had dinner, just had a chat with Lucifer, and is feeling really pretty crappy.

There's that whole demon blood thing, too, but Sam would really rather not think about that at all.

The wind picks up outside, a reminder that this time, they have a room on the end of the motel, and Sam shifts restlessly. It feels strange, this exposed wall. It's the least constrained room he's seen in a while, and yet he's never felt so trapped.

He wonders how Lucifer can call him, if he can't find Sam. Will it happen again, once he leaves this room?

In another lifetime, Sam would've come up with some big, intellectual plan, and been ready with diagrams and helpful internet FAQs waiting for Dean when he got back. In this lifetime, he settles for getting as completely drunk as is humanly possible, then passing out on Dean's bed.

**

Dean comes home halfway through the night. His cheeks are stained red, either with liquor or cold. Sam rolls over a bit, just enough to watch him drop his coat and a six pack on the hotel room desk, and toss his keys next to the pile.

Dean sits down next to him, and gives Sam an irritatingly cheerful nudge. Sam groans. His head's gone thick, and Dean smells stale, sour with sweat and beer. He's been at a bar.

"Hey Sam," Dean says, and nudges him again. "Sammy." His voice is soft, warm, round with promise.

Sam groans and rolls over completely. Dean won't give up, not when he's in a mood like this. He gets wild and speculative sometimes, late at night and fresh from a hunt or a shakedown. It makes him almost difficult to look at, with his feelings and desires filling him up nearly to the bursting.

It's times like these, when Dean is all warm and open, that make Sam want to beg him to stay here forever, all wide eyes and unfamiliar weather, and let someone else worry about the apocalypse while they work on cars and maybe learn to cook.

"Got a lead," Dean says, and Sam stares down at Dean's hands, clasped loosely in his lap. His knuckles are red, the skin taut and calloused. He's tapping one blunt, squared off finger against his lower thigh.

"What'd you find?" Sam asks, and sits up, righting his t-shirt where's it's gone twisted around him. He feels a little short of breath.

Dean leans over to unlace his boots, and the lamplight flickers as it passes over the workings of muscle and bone of his right forearm.

"A lot of hunters are thinking it's almost time," he says, and his tone is shockingly conversational.

"They're all gearing up for the fight," he continues, and though his voice is still calm, something about him is going all intense, excited.

"There's a rumor that some of them are on the trail of a special weapon."

Sam's stomach is tight. "The colt?"

Dean shakes his head, and the corner of his mouth is curved just slightly, carving out his laugh lines. When does Dean find the time to laugh?

"Something else," he says, and now he's really grinning. "Something bigger."

"Who else is after it?" Sam asks, because maybe they can just have it. Maybe one of the angels can take care of this, or something, and Sam can go back to school and make Dean fix up that shack of an off-campus house Sam used to walk by on his way to class, and they can keep the fridge fully stocked and he can crack Dean up with stories about his poetry class and Dean can say things about sorority girls that he doesn't really mean.

But Dean just smirks and says, "Doesn't matter. We're gonna get there first." He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it past Sam, tucks a finger under the v of his t-shirt neck-line and pulls it downward, pulling at the cotton with an expansive sound of pleasant fatigue. "Get some sleep, we're headed out first thing tomorrow."

Sam thinks about protesting. He seriously entertains the thought for a moment, but he already knows Dean wouldn't understand his reluctance to leave, that it would just start a fight that he wouldn't really be able to explain, so instead he just pulls off his shirt and starts on his belt-buckle and asks, "Where're we going?"

"California," Dean sing-songs, as though this is some kind of vacation, and when Sam stands to shuck his pants, Dean gives him a cheerful shove toward his own bed, and turns out the light before Sam's head has even hit his pillow.

**

Then they're driving, have been for days. They enter California somewhere above LA, and Dean tells Sam that they're heading north along the coast. It's late afternoon, and much cooler than anyone ever thinks California would be, but Sam keeps the window down and thumbs the volume knob of the stereo up to a dull roar.

He's stretched out in his seat as the music blasts over and through him, his face thrumming with the force of the bass. Dean, beside him, is more serene than he's been in ages, driving with a supreme confidence that encompasses everything Sam knows about his brother. He drives with his whole body, and he's so relaxed, languorous, never anxious, because he always knows exactly what the car's going to do, long before it happens. There's something incredibly sensual about it.

Dean will never admit to any of this, of course. If Sam asks how he drives so well and Dean doesn't just crack a joke, he'll inevitably say, "I drive," and turn the music back up, end of conversation. He's always like that, always thinking much more than he likes to pretend he does, always far more aware than he'll admit.

For the moment, the worry lines have fallen free of Dean's face, and he seems oblivious to any world that might exist outside his car as he slowly nods to the music and cups the steering wheel warmly, almost lovingly, keeping time with the flat of his palm.

It's a warm, soft, close sound, and it resonates deeper in Sam's chest than does the music itself.

A day or two ago, somewhere between Arizona and New Mexico, Sam acquired a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. Of course, in the one situation where Sam really wants him to ask what's wrong, Dean is oblivious; although to be fair, Sam's really past the point of any casual conversation beginning with, "Oh, forgot to mention, Lucifer called the other night."

Dean's just starting to look at him without being all wounded about it, and Sam is certain that he'll lose any shot at Dean ever treating him like an adult again if he tells him about this now. Besides, it would only make things more awkward, talking about how Little Sammy's bound to crack.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he wakes up to find that the car isn't moving, and Dean's telling him to get up, get out of the car, and he's got that burstingly full look that makes him look so young.

Sam's first instinct is to make for the weapons, but Dean laughs, deep and hearty and honest, and takes him by the shoulders, palms warm and fingers outspread. He turns Sam around, and then Sam sees.

It's night now, and softly warm. The air would be thick, unbearable, during the day, but now it just presses softly, cushions them as they stand. They're pulled over on an overhang of rocky turf, and the ocean is spread out before and beneath them. Sam can see the rocky, circuitous route that they'll continue to take, and it hits him how high up they are, on this path atop a cliff, and they could almost be the only people in the universe right now. Sam wishes fiercely that this was true.

Dean's looking oddly at him, and Sam realizes that his breath is coming in short gasps, and Dean must be able to hear his heart, it's pounding so fiercely.

"Let's find somewhere to eat," Dean says, breaking the spell, and Sam feels as though he might cry.

They find a little seaside diner that's open all night. Dean orders surf and turf, and he's disgustingly pleased about finding it on a diner menu. "California," he keeps saying, in this eyebrow wiggling thumbs-up kind of way. Sam realizes that whatever they're looking for, Dean really thinks it's going to work, and suddenly he has to know why.

The lights in the diner are harsh, and Dean's squinting against them, gesturing with his forkful of shrimp as he tells some anecdote about a bar fight or something. Sam finishes off his burger and wipes a slow hand across his lips, leans back in his chair and looks up at Dean through half-closed eyes.   
"Lets go see the beach," he says, and of course Dean likes this idea.

The diner is placed along the road, above the shore, but the drop doesn't look too deadly, so they trip and slide down the slope to the level of the ocean. Then, it's a short hike across a salt-bleached field of thick stalks of something that looks like wheat, and they emerge out on the waterfront, where the sand pulls at their feet and moving becomes far more of an effort.

They stop to unlace their shoes and cuff their jeans, then, with a shared glance, pad over the coarse sand, riddled with pebbles that catch under the balls of Sam's feet and make him shudder, cold and slick and pressing intimately into the tender regions of the soles of his feet.

The water is cold, wincingly, bitingly cold, but neither of them retreats. Dean's still got that wild, jubilant look on his face, and Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and tucks his neck toward his chin, and asks, "What, exactly, are we looking for?"

Dean's gone all still and calm, and he's looking out at the horizon line, and when he speaks, it's soft and slow.

"It's a cup," he begins, and lifts his hands above his head, stretching his shoulders in a ripple of fabric and muscle, highly casual. "You drink from it, you become a champion in the fight against Lucifer."

"Okay," Sam says, just as casual.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy," Dean murmurs, "But even Bobby thinks it's worth a try."

Sam doesn't bother to hold back the bitten lip at the admission that Dean's still consulting with Bobby before he talks to Sam. Dean smiles gently, though, as if he could soothe away the sting with that look.

"Supposedly it belonged to Jesus. But, you know, that's probably just a story."

Then Sam's pitching himself to the ground, into the surf, and he's laughing and laughing, strident in the quiet of the night, and Dean's standing over him and he's laughing too, and Sam can see that he's been waiting for Sam to ask him about this for a while.

"What? He asks innocently," and offers Sam a hand up.

Sam doesn't take it. "Dean," he says, raising his voice over Dean's laughter, "Just to be clear, we're looking for the fucking holy grail?"

Dean doesn't answer.

2+2=5

Are you such a dreamer?  
To put the world to rights?  
I'll stay home forever  
Where two &amp; two always  
makes up five

I'll lay down the tracks  
Sandbag &amp; hide  
January has April's showers  
And two &amp; two always  
makes up five

It's the devil's way now  
There is no way out  
You can scream &amp; you  
can shout  
It is too late now  
Because

You have not been  
paying attention

I try to sing along  
I get it all wrong  
Ezeepeezeeeezeepeeezee  
NOT  
I swat em like flies but  
Like flies the burgers  
Keep coming back  
NOT  
Maybe not  
"All hail to the thief"  
"But I am not!"  
"Don't question my authority  
or put me in the dock"  
Cozimnot!  
Go &amp; tell the king that  
The sky is falling in  
When it's not  
Maybe not.

(From Green Plastic Radiohead)


	2. A Ladder to Somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part corresponds to track 2, Sit Down/Stand Up

They stay in a motel for the remainder of the night, still right up against the coastline. Sam's restless, and offers to take a turn driving, but Dean is adamant that they stay here.

When they're both in bed, Sam squirming because he's really too tall for a twin bed, he rolls onto his side and asks, over the small void of floor space, "How much farther is it?"

Dean, who's already half asleep, shrugs in a loose way that utilizes his whole body, shoulder to flank, and says, "I don't know, man. This is the farthest I know for sure."

"What're we supposed to do next, then?" he shoots off, because this plan is so much more shaky than some of the worst plans they've come up with.

Dean just sighs and answers, "Wait for inspiration."

Within a moment, Dean's asleep.

**

Later, Sam wakes up in that deepest part of the night, the time when everything's gone quiet and the air feels at once empty and heavy.

He feels under his pillow. Then, satisfied that his rawhide-sheathed knife is still where he left it, he sits up and glances around.

Dean's gone, but the room is so calm that Sam thinks it's probably of Dean's own volition. Still, it's that old ache in his chest, born of too many times waking to find that they've been separated, so he gets up.

Sam starts for the door, but with his hand nearly on the doorknob, he decides instead to return to bed and draw aside the curtains of the window that splits the difference between his and Dean's beds.

The window is open, and the air is crisp against Sam's cheeks. He's always warm at this time of night, and his shirt feels tight and damp where it stretches against his shoulder blades.

Dean is outside. The Impala is parked back there, close enough that when unpacking for the night, Dean was able to hand the back-up shotgun right through the window from his position beside the trunk.

Dean's facing away from Sam, so despite the proximity, he doesn't seem to notice that Sam's up and watching. He's sitting on the hood of the car, looking out ahead, and damnit, but they'd really better get away from the coast if Dean can't get a hold of himself and stop staring significantly at the ocean all the time.

It takes Sam a surprisingly long time to realize that Dean isn't alone.

He's next to Dean, hunched over in his khaki trench-coat with his neck bent toward his chest, very still, very quiet.

Castiel's got a significant look going on, too, but it sure as hell isn't directed at the ocean.

This lasts for a moment, then Dean says, without turning, "Cas-"

"Soon," Castiel says quietly. "When you're ready."

Dean sighs, slouching down with his hands thrust in his jacket pockets. "Look, Cas," he says, and he sounds so tired. "I'm taking Sam into a battleground, and I don't even know what the fuck kind of battle this is. We talking one-on-one shit, or is this a war situation?"

Castiel shifts in his slow, careful way. "I'm trying," he says, and his voice is almost lost in the waves. "I've told you everything I know. After the first part, I hope I'll know more. After tomorrow."

"Right," Dean says. "Tomorrow." He hesitates for a moment, and when he speaks again, there's something urgent about it. "You'll be there?"

Castiel laughs, an insubstantial sound. "I'll be here in the morning. I'll drive with you, so you know the way."

"Right," Dean repeats. "See you tomorrow."

By the time Dean turns away from the water toward him, Castiel's already gone.

Dean stays outside for a long time.

**

In the morning, after they've packed up their gear, Dean turns around in his threadbare t-shirt, clasps his hands together, and says, "Castiel told me where we're going next."

Sam is mired in the mixed responses of relief that Dean isn't lying to him, and dismay at how little of the encounter he's chosen to convey, so it takes him a moment to reply.

"Okay, but what's supposed to happen when we get there?"

Dean shrugs, dragging a hand through his hair. "Maybe you should just ask him."

Castiel appears a few moments later, just as Dean's finished wolfing down the cold leftovers from last night's dinner. Sam nearly drops his paper cup of coffee when all of a sudden, the bed is weighted down across from him. Castiel doesn't seem to notice.

"We should go," he says in lieu of a greeting, and Dean grins, tosses his diner box in the trash can, and stands, brushing his hands off on his jeans.

Sam finishes his coffee in three labored swallows, then crumples the cup between his hands.

They trudge out to the car together, and Castiel, proving that even angels are lazy in the morning, vanishes and reappears in the back seat.

Once they're on the road, Sam can't get settled, and after a moment of his restless shifting, Dean reaches for a cassette, gazes at it momentarily, then tosses it back down in favor of another. He presses it into the console, and Sam, fiddling with the volume and the bass, is just a little bit calmer.

Behind him, Sam can see Castiel in the side-view mirror. He's in the middle seat, and he's sitting with his back completely straight, but his neck folded in on himself, as usual. His feet are placed solidly before him, Sam can tell by the straight line of his thighs. He's very, very still.

This is one of the things that Sam finds most uncomfortable about Castiel. Most of the demons Sam's encountered seem totally relaxed in the bodies they possess. They find some sort of joy in utilizing their vessels to the fullest, seeing just what they can do when in a human body.

Castiel, however, never seems at ease with his form. He knows how to use it in a very basic way; he can walk, even if it's never quite upright, and he can open doors or hold a cup or sometimes place a hand on someone's- well, Dean's- shoulder. It's all the things that he doesn't do that are so unsettling. Sam's never before been aware of all the tiny, unconscious movements his body makes when he's not thinking about it, tapping his foot, brushing his hair out of his face, rubbing his nose, even just shifting to get more comfortable in his seat. Castiel doesn't do any of these things, though, and Sam can barely stand to look at him.

After about 20 minutes, Castiel says, "Here, the house," straight ahead to where he's watching Dean through the rear-view mirror.

Dean takes a neat left turn through the empty double lane, and pulls into the sandy drive of a ramshackle house. It looms above them, a teetering mass of bleached wood and faded, chipped white paint. The house stands alone, nothing but sand and brush around it. It looks completely deserted, and once Sam stops to think about it, he realizes that they haven't seen a single car out on the road this morning.

Here, the sand has begun to cover up the highway completely, until Sam's not even sure how they could have been driving on it so recently.

Castiel is beside them, and he gestures at the building. "That's the place."

"Yes, but what place?" Sam asks for the thousandth time.

"If you want the grail," Castiel replies, and his voice is almost sad, "You have to go in there."

"We," Dean interjects. "We want it."

"Yes," Castiel says. "We."

Sam would really like to say, no, we don't want it, you want it, but he really doesn't have any better ideas, and Dean is so sure of this. Dean needs this, Sam thinks, so he doesn't say anything.

They outfit themselves with their standard weaponry, then Dean steps in front and takes a cautious step up onto the porch. There's an ominous creaking sound, but it holds, so he motions Sam and Castiel to join him. Sam does, and after a moment, Castiel follows.

Dean shoulders the screen door out of the way and tries the door. It's unresponsive, apparently locked, and he jerks the doorknob a few times.

Before he can try to shoulder it open, Castiel nudges him toward the hinge of the screen door and puts a hand on the door, fingers outstretched.

"We need to go in," he says, and the door opens with a dull click.

Theoretically, this could be creepy, but Sam feels that right now a standard haunted house is probably highly preferable to whatever guards a grail.

He's right.

They step over the threshold, one by one, and they're in a dusty hallway, all water-stained wallpaper and exposed wood, rounded off and sanded down by time and weather. There's a pale, wavering light from a window somewhere directly ahead of them, and maybe some cracks toward the top of the walls, too. The whole place looks filthy and dilapidated and as though it hasn't been touched in years. There's something obscene about their presence in this place, brushing up against the walls and walking on the old floorboards.

Dean inches forward and puts a hand out in front of him, as though feeling for something. Sam senses it too, he realizes, a certain buzzing in the air that feels almost electric. Behind him, Castiel's muttering something in Latin, but it's nothing Sam's ever heard before, and he can't place more than a stray word or two. Sam really, really doesn't want to move any farther into the house.

Of course, in a moment of best laid plans and all of that, the crackling of the air increases around them, and Sam feels something around him, pulling at him at wrist and knee and neck. He tries to do something, reach for a knife or yell something or plant his feet, but it doesn't work, and he's dragged along so quickly that the wallpaper blurs into a mass of copper stains.

Then he's standing, again, and Dean and Castiel are there too, looking similarly bewildered. They're somewhere else in the house, now, but Sam doesn't know where. There aren't any windows in this room, and the air is stale. The ceiling is high above them, and he thinks, probably not the attic.

Dean, ever impatient, chokes out something along the lines of, "What the hell? Who are you?"

Then there's something buzzing all around them, a static, some sort of presence. Sam can't quite see it straight on, but he knows it's all around him.

Then it's in his head, too, and Sam finds himself remembering things that he usually confines to the realm of nightmares.

There's his mother, of course, and Jess. He grunts, tries to jerk his head, but he can't, and suddenly there are memories flooding all through him, every bad, petty, or irresponsible thing he's ever done. It feels as though his skull will split, and his eyes are tight, unseeing, choked by the weight of it all.

There's some sort of change in the light. Sam senses it through his pressed closed eyelids, then the pressure abruptly ceases. He stumbles, and makes contact with Dean's warm, solid side. Dean reaches out to him, and they steady. Sam can feel Castiel just beside him.

The buzzing is still there, in the air, but for the moment it has receded at least a few paces. Sam still can't see anything but the occasional outline of a cracked floorboard, poorly fitted to those around it, but after a split second that feels much longer, before any of them can find the breath to say anything, a voice seeps into his head.

It's a rich, melodious sound, androgynous and lilting.

"Really?" it asks, and it sounds amused.

"What the hell?" Dean replies succinctly.

"Just a preliminary," the voice replies, and gives a shivery laugh. "The real trials only happen once we decide you're worthy."

"Okay," Dean says, and his tone is short. "So what did my brain tell you about that?"

"Quite worthy, quite worthy, first brother," the voice replies, "But you cannot go on alone. You must have a guide."

"I think we'll be fine on our own," Dean says, and the entity, whatever it is, laughs again.

"You can't speak the old words, first brother, and without that, you're useless. I'm most sorry, but without a guide, you can go no further. Try-" and at this, the air grows close and tense again, "-and you'll be killed." The entity doesn't sound terribly displeased about this.

Sam desperately wants it to be that easy, wants them to be able to just pack up and leave, find another hunt. Maybe stop to buy a trinket from one of those cheesy tourist shops on the boardwalk, something Dean can hang on the mirror of the Impala, but probably won't because Dean has too much car dignity. He wants to gesture to Dean, tell him come on, lets get out of here, but Castiel begins to speak, and all his, ok, not really there anyway plans fall away.

"I'm the guide," Castiel says, and his voice is resigned.

There's another laugh. "This does complicate things," the entity says. "You know, that's rather a punishable offense, you taking sides in a matter of objectivity, and all."

Castiel sighs, slowly. "I'm prepared."

"Well," comes the rather pleased sounding reply. "At least this won't be boring."

Sit Down, Stand Up

Sit down, stand up  
Sit down, stand up

Walk into the jaws of hell (sit down, stand up)  
Walk into the jaws of hell (sit down, stand up)  
Anytime (sit down)  
Anytime (stand up)  
Sit down, stand up  
Sit down, stand up

We can wipe you out anytime (sit down, stand up)   
We can wipe you out (sit down, stand up)  
Anytime  
Anytime  
Stand up, sit down  
The rain drops (repeated)  
(From Green Plastic Radiohead)


End file.
